Within one particular session – lasting for 40 minutes – users were shown 11 videos of children being sexually abused.

In her second police interview following her arrest, the woman told police that she had participated in the chat room in order to expose paedophiles - although she had not reported anything to police until that point.

Defence counsel Caroline Moonan said: "She thought it would be something like Mumsnet where you would just have a chat about children, but when she went in it was full of paedophiles.

"She felt compelled to explore the chat rooms to try and understand why people do this.

"She cannot really explain what she was intending to do or why she was doing it."

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The woman pleaded guilty to a charge of initiating, encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence, namely the distribution of indecent images of children, and was sentenced at Guildford Crown Court.

She was given 30 months of community work, 50 hours of rehabilitation activity and a sexual harm prevention order for five years.